2022-03-22 - Language!

Spring has sprung.

It actually, literally has. Observe: purple crocus have bloomed all about their designated planted areas in the park -- by signs and around trees, in the beds along the walkways. Daffodils are surely next by their long stalks and heavy, closed tubes of petals. It's balmy (for what counts as balmy) and the sun is out, so Ariadne's decided to enjoy a little jog around the place. There's enough newness to see still to merit it. In black jogging pants and a bright mint-green long-sleeve, gloves on her hands against cold, she's taken up a lazy jogging pace. Samwise, the Silken Windhound, was already exercised this morning and he's napping like the dead back on the motel bed.

The breeze plays in her messy-bun of deeply-auburn hair and pinks her cheeks lightly as she goes. Her earbuds pipe up a steady, cheery stream of songs meant to encourage heart rate. She's seen a few faces she knows, but not by name -- regulars to Espresso Yourself, probably. But wait. Is that? Maybe? The barista slows down a little and pulls an earbud in preparation to call out, "Ro...sencrantz?" Admittedly, she's only ever heard Ravn call him by his last name.

Itzhak turns around, puzzled by the sound of his name but he doesn't recognize the voice. A little boy by his side yanks on his hand. "ITZIL the lady is TALKING to you!!!"

"Yeah I know, don't yank," Itzhak tells him. "Who are you again?" he addresses Ariadne, squinting into the spring sun. It must be said his is a face hard to forget.

Slowing down to a walk to cover the last few yards, Ariadne can't help but grin. Aw, the kid's adorable. "Ariadne," she replies as to just who she is. Plucking the other earbud from her ear, she tucks both away after flicking them off. A touch to her phone in her pants pocket and all music ceases. "We met in passing a while back, at a bar, but it was crazy. Six people were there or something, there was a lot going on." She stops a comfortable, conversation distance away and pants lightly, hands on her hips.

"I'm glad it was you. I wasn't sure at first. Ravn always has such good things to say about you, I figured I'd at least introduce myself properly." A hand is offered out to Itzhak for a shake. Her nails are well-kept if plain, lacking polish. "Ariadne Scullin, barista at Espresso Yourself. New around here. I got the Hotel California speech from Ravn. I understand now," she adds, half-smirking somewhat ruefully. "I'm not interrupting, am I?" A glance at the kiddo.

"Ari-what?" the kid says, wrinkling his nose. He has a Captain America shirt on (shield) and Itzhak has a matching Iron Man one (arc reactor).

He's tall and rough looking, thin and wiry topped with a mane of black curls and a hell of a beak. "No kidding, you're a friend of Abildgaard?" Itzhak shakes Ariadne's hand in his enormous knuckly paw. There's ink on each finger, STAY and DOWN. "I got a first name, too, believe it or not. Itzhak. This here," and he lifts the kid off the ground by the hand, making him squeal in glee, "is Hunter."

"'ey, alright, first names too," laughs Ariadne quietly. "Itzhak," she repeats, trying hard to pronounce it right. "And Hunter -- and now we're properly introduced, yeah? I saved Ravn from his non-black coffee once and now I'm a friend. He's good people." She lifts a hand briefly off her hip, her eyes on Hunter especially. "Ariadne." A slower repetition of the name for the kiddo. "My parents liked it and I'm stuck with it. Now."

She eyes the shirts in particular and her half-smile turns into something fuller, dimpling. "I guess the question is whether or not you both think Black Widow is the coolest Avenger -- because we all know Black Widow is the coolest Avenger. Don't get me wrong, Iron Man and Captain America are pretty cool, but..." Deliberate hand-waffle and soft laugh.

"CABBIN AMERRCKA," Hunter yells, kicking in the air. He makes several explosion noises. "PhhbbbbtLAM WHOOOOONG." Maybe that's supposed to be the shield noise.

Itzhak grins easily at Ariadne, though he seems tired. Dark circles live under his eyes, a certain unexplainable tension lives in his lanky frame. He lets Hunter down, only to have him use his hand as an anchor to lean over at a forty five degree angle. "He's been in some kinda war with the baristas there, if you give him black coffee I bet he's your friend. And," he adds sotto voce, leaning in a little, " Captain America's my favorite too but we couldn't wear the same shirt. Right, buddy?" to Hunter.

"Right!" Hunter chirps like he has any idea what the adults are talking about.

Ariadne's brows lift and she chuckles at the enthusiasm on display. "I like this kid," she asides to Itzhak after Hunter is done announcing his favorite superhero to the entire world. When the man leans in, she does too. Ah, no stealing Hunter's thunder, hence the Iron Man shirt. "Hey, that's fair! I totally get it."

Straightening up again, she sighs and looks between the two. "I bet Hunter's met Ravn. Right? You'll definitely know Ravn when you see him if you haven't met him," she explains to Hunter. "He's very tall -- taller than Itzhak, skinny, and he likes to do magic tricks." Is Ariadne attempting to sic the kid on the Dane? Possibly. Who doesn't want to enjoy, second-hand, the awe of a good card trick or pea disappearance? "My magic trick is like Itzhak said, giving him black coffee. You're a little young for coffee, but...what about you stop by the coffee shop one time with Itzhak? You can get a hot chocolate." She glances up at Itzhak again with a little good-natured shrug. "You babysitting then?"

Hunter sucks in a gasp and looks up at Itzhak with big pleady eyes. Itzhak groans theatrically. "Why do you gotta promise this kid sugar?"

"But ITZIL, hot CHOKLAT," Hunter says.

"Yeah yeah. Maybe, if you're really good."

Hunter tugs on him. "I wanna go on the slides!"

"So go on the slides, am I stopping you?" Itzhak says to him, laughing a little. Hunter screeches and takes off to the playground, running full out. Itzhak watches him go, saying absently, "Not babysitting exactly, but I am getting him outta his ma's hair, so kinda. He's the kid of the lady I was renting a room from aaaand it's a long stupid story but I got attached to him and his sister like I told myself I wouldn't." He hikes one shoulder and his eyebrows like whaddaya gonna do?

"Uh, anyway, you're new in town? Don't lemme keep you from your walk." Itzhak nods invitingly at the sidewalk.

"Because I've got little cousins," Ariadne stage-whispers back to the man between his groan and Hunter's further, emPHAtic enTHUsiasm.

There goes the kid, off the playgrounds to possibly survive clambering all over it, and the barista watches him go with a purse-lipped eventual failure to not laugh. She glances over at Itzhak again and nods understanding -- ah-hah, the reason for the babysitting. His eyebrowing is returned. Indeed, what is one to do?

Itzhak gestures with his head and the barista smirks. "Yeah...definitely new in town. Not here for long at all just yet, about...eh, three weeks or so. The place is...different?" she volunteers and then rolls her eyes. Understatement of the century. Moving into a slow, easy pace, she glances back at the man as if assuming he's tagging along on this walk. "I wish I could tell you I had some super-official reason, but my dog, Samwise, and I were driving and ended up here. I guess I can say that there are orcas in the bay and I'd like to study them? That's not a lie. My degree's in marine biology out of U.W.," Ariadne explains.

"Different, that's polite. That's real polite," Itzhak says dryly. Ariadne's slow, easy pace is barely an amble for him, stupid tall people with their long legs. He hooks his thumbs idly in his pockets, lifting his head to squint into the breeze. "It don't matter how you got here. People like us hear the call somehow and wash up here. I mean listen to me, do I sound like I belong here?"

No, he doesn't, he sounds like the classic New York loudmouth, Yiddish edition.

"Point. Honestly, you sound like you should be yelling at me for bumping your elbow on the sidewalk because I had my nose in my cellphone and wasn't watching where I was walking." Ariande glances over and half-grins -- nay, glances up at the man again. Geez, he's tall. Never is it more apparent than when you're keeping up a nonchalant stride. "I mean, are you really from New York then? I've got kind of an ear for accents, but it's not perfect, not by any means."

Her own accent is decidedly Midwestern, sure, a lyrical twang here and there, but a very sharp ear will catch an influence of Eastern European rounding out certain vowels. She has her hands in her own jogging coat pocket now, one of those narrow stripes of 'kangaroo pouch' across her stomach.

"Are you really a marine biologist?" Itzhak fires back, looking back down at her with a faint curl of a smirk. "Where were you driving, ain't there no good jobs for marine biologists these days? Hey where you from, you sound a little like the old country. Just a little."

So he's got a very sharp ear it seems.

"Pfft." A little sound in retort for the little smirk Itzhak shoots her. Ariadne checks in on Hunter across the breadth of the man's chest -- kid's fine, nobody's dead, conversation can continue. "As a matter of fact, I am a marine biologist. Diploma's framed and in a moving box in storage." She catches her half-instinctive eye-roll and merely gives him a dry look up through her lashes as she adds, "I'm from Seattle, and Boulder, Colorado before that. But..."

Her running sneaker kicks aside a pinecone. She watches it jumble off the path and into the grass. "Anyám Budapesti. Két nyelven nőttem fel. English and Hungarian," the barista adds in the former's language. "My mother's from Budapest originally. Dad is from Minnesota."

Itzhak seems unconcerned. At the playground a hundred feet away or so, Hunter yells, "Shtarker!" at another kid. Itzhak peers over, but doesn't go to anybody's rescue, yet. Things have not yet come to blows.

"So are you gonna study the whales?" He's looking down at her again, the great big beanpole. "That would be pretty awesome." Up go the eyebrows. "Hungarian, ya don't say. That's why you sound like that. I mean, just a little," he adds diplomatically.

"You've got a very good ear," Ariadne admits. "Most people think it's my dad's accent if anything at all. But yeah, Mom's out of Budapest. I've never been there myself, I was born in Colorado." The way she sighs next is wishful, but in the way of good memories rather than active pining. "I miss it sometimes. Four seasons. The elk. The coffee. Hiking, skiing, bike riding...around there," the barista amends. "I can do all that around here -- hell, I work for a coffee shop, right?" Another one-sided shrug of her shoulder as she meets Itzhak's eyes again.

"But yeah, orcas? Can't find those in Colorado. I loved plunking around the rivers, but oh my god. My dad still likes to make fun of the noise I made when they first set me loose on the beach over on Alki Point when I was ten or so. Eeeeee," she then says softly, laughing at the mimicry of her pre-teen years. "Orcas are the butter on the bread. Ravn told me they'd showed up in the bay out here and not going to lie: if I can publish a paper on that? Hey. I'm in like Flynn, as they say." To the scientific community.

"I'm a musician, I got a great ear. Plus my family's from around there," Itzhak wobbles one hand, "kinda."

The eeeeee really makes him grin, showing plenty of laugh lines and crinkling crow's feet at the corners of grey hazel eyes. "It's a pity you're slinging coffee when you could be writing papers about orcas, I'm just sayin'. I guess you gotta do both unless you got a grant. So you should get a grant, U-Dub oughta give you one, right?"

Just like that, UW should give Ariadne a grant!

"Yeah, a grant that easy? And pigs will -- "

Abruptly, the barista peals out laughter. She waves her hand off to one side and shakes her head at herself. "Oh, god, sorry. Ravn. Um. So, he wanted another cup of black coffee and he'd mentioned knowing sleight of hand. I said if he could show me something good, he'd get black coffee whenever I was around and something something 'when pigs fly'. He made a Peppa Pig plushie float." Itzhak gets a now knowing side-look. "Smart-ass motherfucker," she says partially under her breath, expecting the man to agree with her to at least some extent.

"But slinging coffee isn't terrible. Dad's in the business. Runs in the family, almost, and I like it. There's just...something about coffee, y'know?"

Itzhak looks so damn satisfied at this story, meandering along with half an eye on the seething chaos of the playground. He's wearing big black work boots but he makes them roll silently against the concrete. "Hell yeah, that's my boy. We play violin together, he'll tell you he's terrible but he's fantastic."

A harried middle aged woman comes hurrying up, calling, "Sir? Sir is that your child?" pointing to Hunter, who is climbing up the plastic pirate ship with a swarm of other kids.

Itzhak says, promptly, "Nope."

The woman blinks, looking at Ariadne as if she can answer for him.

A handful of other Gray Harborites, at least, have seen this particular smile before.

It's the smile that bodes a future nosy-streak. It might charm the prince of foxes. "Oh-ho. I thought I'd heard about a violin, but now the gossip is confirmed. I play piano," Ariadne adds lightly before the arrival of the woman. Itzhak declines ownership of the little hooligan leading the charge up the pirate ship portion of the playground.

Innocently as the dawn, Ariadne shrugs. "Somebody clearly dropped his backpack leash, he's not mine. I've got a dog." She eyes the piratical swarming. "Something's the matter?"

The woman narrows her eyes at Itzhak. He spreads one hand. "I brought him but he ain't mine. Why?"

She says, starch in every syllable, "Your child called my son a schmuck.'

Itzhak tries to keep a straight face. He really tries. But it's no use, he covers his face and starts snickering madly.

"Eh-hem."

Gathering her dignity about herself after that totally-not-a-laugh slip, Ariadne lifts her brows and interlaces her fingers inside the kangaroo pocket of her jogging jacket. "That's definitely a word to pick," she agrees as diplomatically as she can manage.

With a 6'1" man standing next to her pulling a Huckleberry Hound into his hands.

"Well?" the woman demands. "Do you think that's acceptable?"

"Nnnyeh," Itzhak says, tone wavering. He hollers at the playground, "Hunter, we don't call people schmucks!"

"But you do all the time!" Hunter yells back.

Itzhak starts tinting red. "I mean, he's got me there." He looks sidelong at Ariadne, trying not to laugh.

Ariadne can't help but pull her pursed lips to one side. It's very obviously yet another attempt not to laugh because this is turning into a semi-fiasco of playground proportions. She meets Itzhak's eyes and holds them, all of her hilarity contained in her own warmly-hazel regard.

And people always say the kids are disagreeing with one another.

"Out of the mouths of babes," the barista yet again manages with the barest waver of amusement in her voice.

"I don't think you're a very good role model," the woman informs Itzhak frostily. Having delivered the final blow, she hurries back to the playground. "Mom, what's a schmuck?" her son asks as she gathers him up.

"Yeah, no kidding, lady," Itzhak says to her back, but he's smirking uncontrollably. He calls (and the guy has some volume on him), "Let's go, bud," to the tune of 'AWWWWW' from Hunter. "I better take him home before his ma skins me," he says to Ariadne. "Hey great to meet you though, you oughta come watch us practice sometime, yeah?"

Pressing the knuckles of one hand to her mouth, the barista squints in what must be tamped-down amusement at the woman's departing back. It's probably the kid asking what on earth he was just labeled. Quite the label. Hunter's grousing breaks composure: Ariadne snorts and lifts her brows in wry acknowledgement of the reply.

"Yeah, no skinning, alive or dead." Given she's already managed a handshake, the redhead instead smiles up at her newest acquaintance. "Same to you, Itzhak. I'd be pleased as pie to sit in on a duet or two. You convince Ravn to come out of his turtle shell about the violin and I promise to be a perfectly polite audience. I might even bring coffee -- or goulash, that went over well last time. Hey, Hunter! Captain America's awesome!" she then shouts towards the playground, making a point to, well, point at the kid with the shield-shirt and then give two Obvious Thumbs-Up of Approval.

"WHOOOOOOO CABBIN AMERRCKA!!" Hunter crows, before he jumps off the pirate ship and rockets over.

"Ehhhh no promises, you gotta talk him into it. Lemme know how it goes." Itzhak upnods to Ariadne. "Tell him I sent ya. Come on, big guy, I'll race ya!"

Then he's the one taking off across the grass while Hunter yells "NO FAIR YOU DIDN'T COUNT" and tears off after him.